The sharply different legacies of 9/11/01 and 9/11/12

On the 12th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacks that left nearly 3,000 Americans dead at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and in a rural field in Pennsylvania, the nation is wrestling with yet another dilemma involving the terrorist group: what to do about Syria. The Assad government has been ruthless about putting down a revolutionary movement, including using lethal poison gas — a monstrous violation of international norms. But a key component of the anti-Assad coalition is al-Qaeda and its allies.

President Barack Obama’s decision on whether to proceed with an airstrike against the Syrian government depends on a complex series of judgments. Would Syria honor a possible Russian-brokered deal? Would failing to punish governments for using horrific weapons of mass destruction set a precedent the U.S. comes to regret? Would al-Qaeda dominate a post-Assad Syria? Should congressional support of an attack be necessary for it to proceed?

One way or another, however, we can count on the president to heed the lesson of the first 9/11: America must be ever vigilant in defending against the mortal enemies who will go to extraordinary lengths to harm our country.

Unfortunately, there’s another 9/11 anniversary to mark today, and it amounts to a deeply troubling commentary on our commander-in-chief. On the night of Sept. 11, 2012, four Americans — including three with deep San Diego ties — were killed in sustained terrorist attacks on two U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya.

The Obama administration’s response to the tragedy — which left dead U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, information officer Sean Smith, a San Diego native, and former Navy SEALs turned CIA contractors Tyrone Woods of Imperial Beach and Glen Doherty of Encinitas — has been disgraceful.

For weeks, the president and his aides promoted the fiction that the Benghazi attacks were a spontaneous response to an inflammatory anti-Islam video. When that lie was finally abandoned, the White House continued to hide basic information about what happened that night. While orchestrating this cover-up, officials said criticism was partisan or without merit — even after a scathing internal report raised fresh questions about the many hours it took to send help to embattled U.S. personnel in Benghazi after the initial attacks that killed Stevens and Smith.

To their discredit, most of the mainstream media accept the idea that there’s nothing new left to learn about Benghazi. But to the credit of CNN’s Jake Tapper, CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson and a relative handful of other journalists, they’ve kept digging — and kept finding more discrepancies between what we’ve been told and what actually happened.

Yet the cover-up goes on. Just Tuesday, it was revealed that the Obama administration continues to refuse to allow House investigators to interview State Department officials who witnessed and survived the attacks.

Why? After one year of stonewalling, the answer is obvious. The president wants to keep the lid on what happened at Benghazi — starting with the likelihood that if his administration had acted with a bare minimum of competence, local heroes Woods and Doherty would still be alive.